An error in judgement
by brunette supremacist
Summary: Hermione has a bit of a problem on her hands. She can't stop thinking about Draco Malfoy. Even more of a problem: he seems to be noticing.
1. Chapter 1

Hermione looked her reflection in the eye.

"Hermione," she told herself sternly, "you have made a terrible mistake."

Her reflection looked sternly back at her, hazel eyes flashing, curly hair seeming to quiver with rebellion.

"You know it's true," she said unsympathetically, shaking her school robes back and folding her arms. "Somewhere along the line, things have gotten completely cocked up. I don't know how it's happened, but you, missy, are in big trouble." Her reflection lifted her chin and squared her shoulders.

"Now, let's review the facts. Number one: you are a clever and exceedingly capable witch."

Her reflection nodded; there was no arguing with that.

"Number two: you are extremely sensible." Another nod.

"Number three: you are rarely ruled by your impulses. You always think things through." An inclination of the head.

"However, somehow, against your better judgement, against all your powers of intellect and logical thinking, you have found yourself fantasising about Draco Malfoy."

Her reflection shrugged helplessly.

"Don't shrug those bony shoulders at me!" Hermione exclaimed, exasperated. "This is entirely your fault. A complete and utter error in judgement. Firstly, you should never have looked at him with his shirt off. Fine, it was the end of the Quidditch match and Slytherin had just beaten Ravenclaw, so the whole team were doing that weird thing where they pull off their shirts and stick them on their head, but there was absolutely no need for you to _stare_ at Draco. No need at all."

Her reflection raised her eyebrows at her sardonically.

"I mean Malfoy," she corrected herself quickly. "No need to stare at Malfoy."

Her reflection rolled her eyes.

"Now, don't give me that. Fine, so he was much more built than you expected, and his abs were slick with sweat from the game…"

Her reflection watched her, a mocking smile on her lips.

"And so his arms were carved with just the right amount of muscle, and as he laughed and triumphantly threw his fist grasping the snitch up in the air he looked devastatingly handsome, and you couldn't help imagining him grabbing _you _with those strong arms, and pushing you up against the wall…" Hermione's eyes had glazed over, and her reflection mimed knocking on the mirror, trying to get her attention. She snapped out of her reverie.

"Right! See, there's another example. Thinking about him like that. There is no excuse for it. Draco Malfoy is NOT getting his hands on your snitch."

Her reflection nodded, amused.

"Come on, now, this is serious! You can't stop thinking about him! You've been staring at him in class. You can't study because you keep floating off into fantasies. You've been thinking about him in the middle of the night. Imagined him, hands all over you, eyes hot, kissing you long and deep and hard…"

Her reflection coughed.

"See! You can't even get through a lecture to yourself without drifting off into a daze about bloody Malfoy!" She rubbed her hand over her face. "You have to do something about this. Something's got to give."

Her reflection looked at her expectantly.

"That's why I enchanted this mirror. You're the part of me that is attracted to him. What are we going to do about this?"

Her reflection's eyes lit up.

"No! We can't possibly do that."

Her reflection winked at her.

"Can't you just stop thinking about him? Find someone else to obsess about?"

Her reflection shook her head and looked thoughtful for a moment. Then, snapping her fingers, she smiled saucily, fluffed her hair and unbuttoned her shirt a couple of buttons, and then gestured towards her newly sexy appearance.

Hermione gazed at her reflection for a moment, considering…

"Oh, this is a waste of time," she snapped. She picked up her wand and ended the spell.

_God knows why I thought that would work,_ she thought as she picked up her gigantic stack of books, slinging her bag over her shoulder and unlocking the Prefect bathroom door with a flick of her wand and a murmured "alohomora". She pushed through the door, only to find Draco Malfoy standing on the other side, smirking in his usual, painfully attractive way.

Hermione promptly dropped all of her books.

"Oh," she said weakly, and felt her face go hot.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow at her as she bent down to pick them up.

"Are you right there, Granger?" He asked, amused.

"Fine, fine!" She snapped, carefully piling one book on top of another, willing her blush to go away. She looked up to find Malfoy at her eye level, proffering a quill she had dropped. He took in her flaming cheeks and his mouth quirked.

"What were you doing in the bathroom, Granger?" he asked, a glint in his eye.

Hermione stood up in a panic and nearly lost her books again. "Nothing!" she chirped, her voice unnaturally high. "Just practising a speech!"

Malfoy stood up and looked down at her, grinning. He was so _tall_. She blinked at him, trying not to think about his beautifully carved face and his excellent cheekbones.

Suddenly he put a hand on her shoulder and leaned in close. "Are you sure, Granger?" he said, voice low, conspiratorial. "Are you sure you weren't doing something… naughty?"

She froze, her shoulder burning where his hand rested. His face was too close and his eyes were too blue. Her breath caught. _Quick! Do something!_

She cleared her throat. "I was practising a speech," she squeaked, and then she fled.

She heard Malfoy laughing behind her.


	2. Chapter 2

By the time she got to transfiguration, she was furious. How could she have been so stupid? Why couldn't she control her damn face? She was smarter than that! She slammed her books down on the desk next to Ron's.

"Well, hello to you too, sunshine," Ron said jovially. Hermione gave him her best glare, and he hurriedly decided that he should really get on with transfiguring his teapot.

There, she thought with satisfaction. I can still scare the shit out of Ron, at least.

She went and collected a teapot, and settled down to the task of turning it into a guinea pig. Despite the pleasure she felt at turning Ron into a nervous wreck, her mood was still fairly black. Every time she pointed her wand at the teapot, it whistled in alarm and hopped away. She huffed in frustration and pulled it towards her for the fifth time. At least the others in the class weren't faring much better. Harry had only succeeded so far as to give his teapot a rather fetching pair of whiskers, while Ron had somehow broken the spout off his teapot and was trying to repair it before Professor McGonagall noticed.

Hermione took pride in the fact that she was a strong willed, independent witch. She scornfully watched as others in her year giggled and blushed when an overly entitled wizard managed to muster up a vaguely clever remark. She was not stupid enough to be impressed by some toothy guy with artfully swept hair. But one unexpected encounter with Malfoy, and he left her a quivering mess. She silently vowed that next time, he wouldn't catch her so off guard. Then she reminded herself that there wouldn't be a next time, because she was supposed to be avoiding him.

She sighed and pointed her wand at her teapot again.

In the end, she was in too much of a flap to have much success with the transfiguration task, but luckily, Neville managed to set fire to Lavender's hair (and a number of other things) so they spent the remainder of the lesson putting out fires and trying to catch several panicked half-guinea-pig, half-teapot-creatures which were remarkably quick considering most of them had less than the full complement of legs.

Not only did this cover up for her (unprecedented!) failure with the teapot, it served as an excellent distraction from the blonde git.

Some time later, Hermione, Harry and Ron were making their way to Potions. Ron was complaining noisily about an injury he had sustained in the melee.

"Bloody hell, look how deep it is! You wouldn't think a spout could even cause this much damage!" He exclaimed, outraged, waving his injured arm at them. Inwardly, Hermione rolled her eyes. If it hurt that much, how come he was still able to wave it around so energetically?

"Just imagine if I got Teapot Rot!" Ron peered closely at his arm, inspecting it for infection. He sniffed the scratch suspiciously, then thrust it under Harry's nose. "Does that smell like Earl Grey to you mate?"

While Harry reassured Ron that his arm did not, in fact, smell like any type of tea, Hermione strode ahead of them into the draughty dungeon. Usually her friends amused her, but today she was feeling impatient and restless. She started setting up her cauldron, relaxing into the task. Finally, something that required no thought, something she could just lose herself in. She was partway through, laying Blithering Beans out side by side when Snape swept in and barked at them to stop.

"As you know, we have had more than our share of animosity in this class," Snape drawled, his usual sneer in place. "Recent events," his eyes lingered on Seamus Finnegan and Goyle, who had started throwing toad eyeballs at each other during the last class, "have shown that we need to work on working together. Without," he snapped as several students in the class groaned, "behaving like imbeciles." At this point he turned to glare at Ron and Harry.

"As such, I have decided to place each of you in a designated pair in which you will conduct all lab work for the next month. Each pair will contain one Gryffindor and one Slytherin. And I will be expecting you to work extremely well together if you want anything above a failing grade."

Suddenly, Hermione had a really bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Snape paced around the dungeon, handing out pairings, his oily hair swaying slightly with his movement. "Miss Brown, you can join Mr Blaise. Mr Crabbe, I think you and Mr Potter can flail hopelessly together." Snape smirked at Harry as Crabbe cracked his knuckles and made his way over to Harry's bench.

"Mr Weasley, you shouldn't be able to do much damage to Mr Goyle's abysmal test scores." Goyle stiffened in outrage, and Ron looked as though all his nightmares had come true at once.

Snape's eyes caught on Malfoy. "On the other hand, Mr Malfoy, I think you need some motivation to work harder in this class – how about… yes. Miss Granger, please go and join Mr Malfoy at his bench." Hermione stared at him in horror. "Sometime this year, Miss Granger," Snape said, his voice dripping with disdain.

She gathered up her ingredients and knives and walked over to Malfoy, feeling like a prisoner heading to her execution. _This can't be happening. _

Malfoy was standing there with his arms crossed, shirtsleeves rolled up, tie loosened, looking unfairly attractive. With no warning, Hermione suddenly had a vision of him sweeping all the ingredients off the bench onto the floor, gripping her by the hips and swinging her up on the cold surface, leaning her back, kissing her neck…

_Oh shit. _With a monumental effort, she brought herself back from the edge. As she looked up, she noticed a slow smile spreading across Malfoy's face.

_This is very, very bad._


End file.
